Amma's birthday message

[Guest guest]

Thank you Amma, for the marathon 19 hours of darshan

and for remembering all of your children who couldn't

be there with you.

 

Jai Ma,

Ravi

 

 

http://www.amritavarsham.org/amma/birthdaymessage.htm

 

>From the speech given by Amma on the morning of

September 27th, 2003, International Stadium, Kochi

during Amritavarsham50 celebrations

 

Amma has never considered that She has a birthday or

that it should be celebrated. It is the sankalpa

(resolve) of Amma’s children that has borne fruit in

the form of these celebrations. It is an occasion for

all of Amma’s children to come together to pray to the

paramatman (supreme Self), thus lighting the lamp of

love and peace, during a time when there is so much

darkness of sorrow and strife. This occasion is a

festival of love.

 

As this celebration helps in kindling the awareness

that we are children of the Divine Mother, Amma also

agreed to join Her children to share their happiness.

May this celebration pave the way to bring smiles to

the faces of those in distress and also help in wiping

their tears.

 

As this celebration helps in kindling the awareness

that we are children of the Divine Mother, Amma also

agreed to join Her children to share their happiness.

May this celebration pave the way to bring smiles to

the faces of those in distress and also help in wiping

their tears.

 

Today, children did pada puja (ceremonial washing of

feet) to Amma. Cleaning the drains, within and

without, would make Amma happier.

 

One should not view serving others as a tiresome

endeavour but an opportunity given by God. We should

also be able to serve society with the same attitude.

We should be able to see these actions as an offering

to God and experience contentment.

 

Let us reflect a little on the glimpses that we see in

society:

1. To study about the worlds within the ocean and

about the mysteries in space, we spend a lot of money

and organize expeditions. But we are not ready to

explore the inner world within, which is nearer than

the nearest.

2. The size of the TV screens in our homes is getting

bigger and bigger. But at the same time our mental

screens are becoming smaller and smaller. It is our

selfishness and ego, which is responsible for this.

3. We have powerful vacuum cleaners today that can

suck even the smallest speck of dust. But we are not

at all aware of the pile of rubbish (negativity)

within increasing day after day.

4. We have decorated the walls of our houses with

wallpaper featuring beautiful images of nature. We

love it very much that way. But at the same time we

cut the trees around our houses. We do not hesitate to

dump garbage into rivers or ponds.

 

It is the mind that makes life beautiful or ugly. We

should first beautify the mind. Ages before, during

the Satya Yuga, there were intermittent wars between

the asuras and devas. However, they lived in different

worlds. When Sri Rama incarnated, the enemy came a

little closer and occupied the neighbouring island.

During the time of Sri Krishna the enemy was in the

same family. In this age, the enemies have become even

closer, and are inside us. Only by winning over the

inner enemies can we achieve real victory.

 

Who are the inner enemies? Ego, jealousy, hatred and

greed are some of the enemies. To defeat these

enemies, we need to strengthen the army within us.

Discrimination, humility, service and love for God

constitute this army. If we use these positive forces

effectively, we will be able to attain victory and

experience real happiness.

 

In today’s society, the biggest complaint that

everybody has is the shortage of time. Everyone from

top to bottom is busy. Even a small child can be heard

saying, “I am in a bit of a hurry.” This is spreading

like a contagious disease.

 

This is the condition of many people. They have

thoughts of hundreds of pending things but are not

able to accomplish anything. Why does this happen? It

is because the mind is not at all steady and still. We

are not able to live in the present. Our thoughts are

always about the future. There is nothing wrong with

planning. Suppose we are drawing the plan of a bridge,

our attention should be focused totally on that. When

we are building the bridge, our whole attention should

be on that. But because we are anxious about the

future, the mind is always tense.

 

Tension is the cause of many diseases. Many are alive

because of a pacemaker. If we install a peacemaker in

our hearts, we can do without most of the pacemakers.

 

What is this peacemaker? It is spirituality.

 

When difficult situations arise in life, we try to

change the situation rather than trying to find and

change the cause of it. But unless we go to the root

of the problem, we can never arrive at a solution. For

eg: A little child is crying out of hunger. The mother

consoles the child by giving it toys to play. The

child remains quiet for sometime. But soon, when the

hunger increases, the child starts crying even louder.

If the child has to really stop crying it’s hunger has

to be appeased. The cause has to be traced and treated

first. Normally the way we solve a problem is by

substituting it with another problem.

 

In order to understand the root cause, we must remain

alert. We must learn about our mind and its thoughts.

 

There are four ways through which we effectively

communicate with each other: 1. Reading; 2. Writing;

3. Speaking; and 4. Listening. We are given good

training for reading, writing and speaking right from

our childhood. But our faculty of listening is not as

well trained as the other three. Hence most of the

people are poor listeners.

 

God has given us two ears and one mouth. We have to

listen twice as much as we speak. But it is the other

way around. We go on speaking without listening

properly. We need to develop the art of listening. If

we are good listeners, we will be benefited in life,

and we will be able to give others happiness also.

This art will help us act appropriately in all

situations and free us from many problems.

 

The reason behind the wars and the increase in

terrorism that we see in the world today is the hatred

in the individual mind. Keeping hatred within towards

our enemy is like consuming poison and expecting your

enemy to die. It destroys all our peace of mind.

 

When we see a physically handicapped person in a

wheelchair, it is easy to feel compassion towards that

person. A person who is not able to control his or her

anger also has a similar handicap, which is not

visible. Just as we feel compassion towards the

physically handicapped persons, we should also feel

compassion towards people with the handicap of anger.

It is our love and compassion that will help them to

recover.

 

All our negative emotions arise from the ego. To

recognize the ego is difficult. The medicine to

eliminate the disease of the ego is love. If we love

somebody sincerely, we will never have any anger or

jealousy towards that person. If we set our minds to

it, we can increase the love within us. Likewise, if

we so wish, we can increase anger, jealousy and other

such negativities within. We have both within us. We

have the freedom to choose what to discard and what to

nourish. We must decide what to discard and what to

nourish. By constant effort, we will be able to kindle

the love within and thus overcome the ego.

 

What are the gifts God has given us? Discrimination

and love. If we use these appropriately, we can

realize God. Even though we have both discrimination

and love within, we often do not use them. We thus

become instrumental in destroying our own unused

gifts.

 

Love and life are not two, but one. A life devoid of

the sweetness of love is like a parched desert. Life

and love are as inseparable as a word and its meaning.

Realizing that life is love and working with that

awareness every moment of our lives constitute the aim

of sadhana (spiritual practice).

 

When we begin to thus live life, others will follow

suit. We should love one another and become one. We

should express love. We can then create heaven in our lives.

 

 

 

The New with improved product search